Women Without Men
15 September 2009, terribly early in the morning
The second film I watched at the film festival was Women Without Men. The film is set in Iran, based on a book with the same name, but is a French production. I believe it was filmed in Morocco. The movie chronicles the lives of 4 women living in Iran, circa 1953, just before the American & British backed coup. Each women encounters some sort of hardship, and ends up wandering to this mysterious orchard. The film was a little bit too surreal at times: I find with films that are for the most part realistic depictions of life, introducing fantastic elements rarely works well. I find it hard to connect to the characters, since it’s unclear what’s ‘real’. The actress who plays the prostitute does an excellent job. The scene with her in the bathhouse is really well done. It’s a very pretty film, and the story is interesting enough, but on the whole I thought the film was lacking. There is certainly a lot of buzz around the film, so I might just be an idiot.